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Sarah Drury is a Washington, D.C.-based researcher on humanitarian and human rights issues in the Arab world. She recently completed a Master’s in Arab Studies at Georgetown University, where she conducted research on women’s rights in Saudi Arabia and in pre-2011 Syria. Her work with the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown focused on the effects of the Syrian refugee crisis on neighboring countries, as well as forced migration in the wider Arab region.
A former international news journalist at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and France 24, Sarah has also worked for human rights organizations in Australia and the Middle East.
Education: The Key to Women’s Empowerment in Saudi Arabia?
In recent news from Saudi Arabia: religious police filmed berating a fully veiled woman for not wearing gloves; a cleric’s fatwa against women watching football to prevent them from staring at men’s thighs; and a woman sentenced to 70 lashes for insulting her husband on WhatsApp.[1] At the same time, the Saudi education ministry released statistics showing that women constitute almost 52 percent of university graduates inside the kingdom, while more than 35,000 female Saudis studied abroad in 2014.
